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For Barack Obama, a new effort to connect

Obama chats with Deborah Mullen, wife of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on Monday. |
Reuters
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The shift comes after two years of criticism of Obama for being distant and holding even his allies at arm’s length. It seems just about everyone in Washington has at some point accused Obama of being standoffish: Congressional Democrats have said he’s inaccessible; Republicans have said he makes only politically calculated social calls; business executives and liberal groups have felt they were on the outside looking in, and reporters who cover Obama daily have complained he doesn’t know them or seem interested in getting to know them, unlike his recent predecessors, Clinton and George W. Bush.

“He is ‘just the facts, ma’am’ and a lot of people comment on that,” said a longtime Washington Democrat who sees a shift in Obama’s interpersonal approach. “They never feel like they have a warm engagement in the meeting. They feel like they’ve had a good meeting and got their points across, but they never say they leave with knowing Obama the guy.”

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That seems to be changing.

Obama not only decided to mingle with House Democrats Friday evening at their annual retreat, chatting with them one on one, rather than addressing them from behind a lectern as he has previously done; he also posed for photographs with them and grooved to Michael Jackson on the dance floor.

Said another former Clinton press secretary, Joe Lockhart: “They’re going out of their way to look like they’re reaching out and to look more like they’re accessible and less insular.”

“It’s a big part of Washington political culture,” Lockhart added. “One of the first steps to turning around a bad political situation is to at least publicly recognize and take steps that say, ‘See, I get it.’”

The White House says Obama will continue to get more personal, with more mix-and-mingle events and perhaps lunches with Republican leadership. “I think you’ll see more of them, sure,” White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters Monday, adding that before the November election, “we didn’t do enough of that.”

For the past two years, Obama had turned down requests to speak at the Gridiron’s annual gathering of Washington reporters, columnists and bureau chiefs. But this year, the president’s aides thought it was important for him to get onstage and poke fun at himself. They remember how a Gridiron appearance won him accolades as a senator in 2006, before the presidential primary began.

Obama has made other overtures to the media, which he spent much of his first two years in office criticizing. He’s wandered back to the press cabin on Air Force One nearly as many times in the past three months as he had since taking his first flight on the aircraft in February 2009. He recently dropped by when his wife and daughters were on board and took several questions, surprising even some of his aides.

"The president is trying to open up." the liberal/progressive pro-Obama Politico

.............lol how about "the MSM wolfpack press is trying to prop our Great Divider-in-Chief up"

Well folks it looks like once again the most corrupt liberal/progressive institution, our MSM wolfpack press is in FULL Re-install Re-elect Obama mode..............

Yep our Free left-wing press is in full "manulation mode" of the American people as they help SELL Obama's phony move to the so-called "center".........................It's a CON..........

Our Great Divider-in-Chief was the most liberal Senator........................FACT

And for the past two years We The People have seen some to the most liberal/progressive policies RAMMED through Congress, like the bribe-ridden partisan HC bill......

The question is................... Are you going to let yourself be fooled by Obama attempt and our MSM wolfpack press attempt to reposition him to the "center" when he has ruled from the left for the past two years and where he was the most liberal Senator when he served in Congress.....? Are you going to allow yourself to be manulated by our MSM wolfpack press?

We can't allow these dishonest "cons" to be rewarded.

Obama = One and Done............................

In a recent poll Americans were asked.........Would you vote for Obama in 2012? .............only 41% said yes........

Liberals make up 20% of the US population...... therefore liberals should make up only 20% of our MSM press..........not 90%. And until there is Justice and fair representation in this area there will be no peace...........

Perceptions, you use the term "liberal" like it's a bad thing. Newt Gingrich was able to make many Americans feel that way for an election cycle a little over a decade and a half ago. It didn't last very long, though. Well, it still hangs on with those on the far, far right fringe. But to most Americans, it's not a horrible thing. Maybe you should get out more.

The press is certainly trying hard to show that President Obama has changed. Perhaps too much. I'm so disenchanted with the media at this point, and have to spend so much time researching to uncover what is really being said and done.

There is not really a difference, as he is in campaign mode, and will be more so as this year goes on. He will still end up being divisive and calling half the country names. It will come out again. He will allow the democrats in congress to carry his message at first and smear those who disagree with policies, such as they are doing with Ryan right now. But, all in all, Obama will have to speak for himself and it will not be pretty. It never is when he gets all wound up.

His agenda is what counts, and he is a far left liberal progressive. If a person agrees with that for our country, they will follow him, if they don't they will vote him out of office.

Right now, it is important to get our people back to work. It will likely be 4-5 years before we can get back to almost full employment that we enjoyed with the past two administrations and further back. Many feel the politicies carried out by this administration set us back a couple of those years rather than address those jobs. A lot of that had to do with the divisiveness of the Administration and the Democratically controlled House and Senate vitriolic nature. Uncertainty is the enemy of progress forward, and they fanned the flames of uncertainty. I don't see the congressional democrats changing that approach no matter how much Obama wants to look like a centrist to obtain the independent votes.

They need to learn that jobs for the private sector is of the utmost imporatance. The public sector will eventually be alright and survive if the private sector is working. But, the administration did exactly the opposite in the last two years i.e. supported and gifted to public sector while starving the private sector.

New expenditures that he will likely propose during the SOTU will undoubtedly do exactly the same thing. Help unions, ignore the public sector, small business, etc. Same politics, just trying a different way of saying it.

The only way for the private sector to take off is to have confidence that regulations will not put you out of business, costs of governmental intervention will not cream your bottom line, interference by government is limited and of value not some ideological crusade, and you don't have people in the congress and administration looking to fix THEIR errors by looking to tax those who provide jobs at every single opportunity. We don't have that, and that's one of the very big reasons the people have felt no recovery. Trust and confidence are the two things necessary in America. It is exactly what is missing now.

Let's see if he addresses governmental overreach in the SOTU. I doubt it. Nor do I think he will address the overspending since he thinks spending is the way out of problems. It's like a person who has a bad day because they can't pay their credit card bill, and thinks the way out of it is to go shopping, to get their mind off it. .

I don't think Obama has the stamina to come in strong in the next 2 years.The media is in Praise mode right now for their chosen candidate but that wont last long .Heck, let them enjoy it while they can.This time around the American people know which side the media is on.

Rest assured, WND has some more big news coming on this front in coming days, weeks and months.

In May, WND Books will release the first book on this subject, "Where's the Birth Certificate? The Case That Barack Obama Is Not Eligible To Be President" by two-time No. 1 New York Times best-selling author Jerome Corsi. (Autographed copies are available for pre-order now.)

In the meantime, legislators in several states are introducing bills to require presidential candidates to establish eligibility for office before they get on the ballot in 2012. I have long predicted passage of even one such bill will keep Obama from seeking re-election in two years. Hillary Clinton, take note.

All these hand-wringing stories about liberals being worried that Obama is moving to the center is nothing but a bunch of hooey.

Obams was raised a marxist, he ruled his first two years as a marxist, and he remains a marxist. The only thing that is moving to the center is his rhetoric. Forget what he SAYS and pay attention to what he DOES.

* He will TALK about creating jobs, but like his ban on drilling in the Gulf, and his proposed destruction of the medical care system, everything he DOES will destroy more private sector jobs.

* He will TALK about reducing the deficit, but everything he DOES will be an attempt to increase it. Except now he will cloak his insane spending schemes by clalling them "investments".

* He will TALK about cutting taxes, but everything he DOES will be an attempt to raise them. One example, mandating that insurance companies provide more services, like requiring that children be covered until age 26. To cover the costs, the insureance companies raise their rates. Obama can take credit for the benefit and blame the insurance companies for the cost increases.

So take heart, all you leftists. You are not losing your marxist-in-chief. He's just putting on a pair of Groucho Marx glasses and pretending to be someone else.

We do not care what Obama says. We know we will not vote for him in 2012 becasue we do not support his policies in particular amnesty for illegal aliens, lawbreakers and criminals and because Obama does not want to seal the Mexican border. It is time for Obama and his Democrats to go. We do not want a socialist president and we do not want Obama because he does not want to produce the long version of his birth certificate. If he does not want to produce his birth certificate and he does not talk about this issue, he is an impostor. We do not need Obama. Let's vote him out. He is a socialist.

For his 3rd SOTU address he will once again speak at the peasants about how he will focus on Jobs, Jobs, Jobs.

But instead of jamming Heath Care down our throats, this year, for a change, in the back of his mind hes concentrating on, New Hampshire, Iowa, and Florida, and how he can invest our tax dollars in those key states from the corrupt state of Illinois and Bidens banking state of Delaware.

President Obama has already accomplished, in a short two years, more for America than any other President in recent history.

He saved the economy from another Great Depression and for that and many other accomplishments like Health Care and Financial Reform history will be kind to him.

That's right! He didn't cause a recession - he saved us from a depression.

He didn't cause 10% unemployment - he saved us from 16% unemployment.

He didn't run up three trillion dollars in overspending - he saved the deficit from going up six trillion dollars.

He didn't open up the borders for illegal immigration - he welcomed millions of new Americans to the land of the free. Well, free for THEM.

He also saved us from an invasion from Mars, asteroids destroying the Earth, and a whole host of other disasters that not only didn't happen, but which wouldn't have happened regardless of who had been president.

For his 3rd SOTU address he will once again speak at the peasants about how he will focus on Jobs, Jobs, Jobs

Oh yes, that pesky jobs thing that he has promise to deal with for the last two years. Didn't the so called stimulus take care of that? Oh yes turtle tunnels and golf carts. We paid 1 million dollars for a 30 thousand dollar a year job. I would say that this president has not a clue as to what his staff, party, entourage are having him do. He will be gone in 2012.

When the President says the word "INVESTMENT", he means more spending that our children will be forced to repay to the Chinese communists. One more time---

"INVESTMENT" = Going farther into debt to the Chinese communists.

Inside of seven years America will be paying the Chicoms SO much that we will be fully funding the People's Liberation Army. Our children will be working overtime just to pay the interest on the debt to their bankers in Beijing. Their lives will be GREATLY diminished by the economic ruination left to them by our "Hopey Changey" President and the insane spending policies of the last two Congresses.